Pocket Garden is slow-play, low-interaction, screen-saver game.
It is a game for dreamers, grinders, slackers and thinkers.
You do not have to do anything. The garden will grow by itself.
However, if you want, you can occasionally tend your garden using the A button.
If you time this carefully, this will revitalise it so you can enjoy it for longer.
You can use the up and down keys to speed-up and slow-down time.
You can use the left and right keys to change the view.
There’s even a fancy plot that shows how well your garden is doing.
However, you can ignore it if you wish.
Do whatever you like, it’s your garden.
Sit back and relax.
Features
Four layers of Conway’s Life running at 30 FPS
Additional decay and mutation background processes
Sound effects that reflect how well your garden is doing
Hi Eriban. Nice to see one new creation from you as you made some of the best games for the META. This one is not my favorite but it’s a personal opinion. But so nice to see you continue to do new and original concept programs
Hi Jicehel. I can understand why you like some of my other creations better. As a game this is definitely pretty bland. It is mostly a technical showcase (the code to run and draw four layers of Game of Life at 30 FPS it quite advanced) and demo that is just interesting to observe and leave running unattended. Anyway, thanks for checking it out.
Yes, nice that you continue to push the limits and make your own coding investigations. It’s make some amazing results As you said, i was talking only from the place of user of the apps without analyzing the code
I just released Version 1.0. It includes some improvements that make the game/creation more self-explanatory. Also, it should be slightly easier to keep your garden alive.
I consider the creation finished, but there may still be another release in the future. My brother volunteered to compose some music. If he finds the time, then the next release will hopefully include music that adapts to how well your garden is doing.
eriban have you see discussion about music on Discord ? mk have make a great job. You can read it here: Discord. You can play sfx and music made with a tracker.
Hi Jicehel. Thanks for sharing. I had not yet seen that. Unfortunately, that discussion was mostly in French, so I could not really follow it.
I am curious how that compares to what I have done as I forked the Gamebuino library and extended it with 4-track music synthesis capabilities (Music Demo - Gamebuino). This can play songs composed using the Pico-8 tracker.
Version 1.1 has been released. My brother delivered on his promise to compose a sound track, so the game now features music. The music is quite special. It adapts based on the state of the game. It consist of four tracks (drums, bass, melody, and high melody), one for each layer of the Garden. The more lively a garden layer is, the more lively the corresponding track is. In total there are 624 possible music segments, so it will take some time to hear them all.
As the emulator on the Gamebuino site does not (yet?) support music you need to download the game and play it on your Gamebuino console or play it from the emulator on my website in order to hear the music.
I like the music
About the game of life. Do the different layers interact? I remember reading about the Conway’s Life variation where there were 4 different colored dots: fox (red), rabbit (white), grass (green) and soil (brown). Then there were rules how they interacted.
The layers do not interact by default. They only interact when the player presses the A button. Then new cells appear at places where there are already two alive cells in neighbouring layers. It’s a very basic interaction, but it can be used revive the garden and let it live much longer.
I had not yet heard about the variation you mentioned, but will check it out.
Hi Jicehel, there’s no rush. Happy to hear your thoughts when you’ve tried out the new version.
By the way, there are occasional artefacts when the music plays (minor pops and cracks). I do not know what causes it but will see if I can find the cause and fix it.
It was a long long time ago when I tried to do 4-color life with VIC-20, but it was too slow I do not know if that can be found in internet, but the rules were like (do not remember exactly):
“If the rabbit is surrounded by N foxes, it will be eaten by a fox and so be replaced by a fox item”
“If the rabbit is surrounded by N grass items, one of grass items will be replaced by a rabbit”
“If the fox do not has any rabbit item as a neighbour, it will die and be repaced by a soil.”
As you said, i was talking only from the place of user of the apps without analyzing the code